Medical Image Analysis
Alzheimer's Disease
Brain CancerBrain Cancer is a particularly serious disease. It usually returns within a year after surgery despite the the use of modern treatments such as radio- and chemo-therapy. The use of imaging technology can help to target surgery and additional treatments better. The Australian E-Health Research Centre, in collaboration with the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital and the University of Queensland, is developing new ways to analyse medical images to help improve the treatment of brain cancer.
In particular, this project is examining how two types of imaging can be combined for this purpose: Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). PET shows information that is complimentary that of MR, because it observes how certain chemical tracers move about within the body and helps to describe the activities of different cells, or metabolic activity. MR, which is uses in standard clinical practice, images the subtle differences in the chemical make up of different tissues in the body, giving high resolution anatomical information.
The combined information should help surgeons to better plan which areas to remove. Unlike in other cancers the risk of the cancer recurring is high, because surgeons need to err on the side of removing too little tissue, for fear of damaging working brain tissue. Radio- and chemo-therapy planning suffers from similar difficulties. In addition, some areas that are cancerous do not show up on MRI, but do on PET.
This project will allow greater amounts of therapy to be given to areas that are usually missed, with less risk to the rest of the brain. Hence the risk of brain cancer can be reduced.
Fused F-DOPA and MR images.
